wiJA:r'Wnj,-Yoii'-:Do 

M'ffi -JESUS -c 


THE  »BST  GIFT  THAT  I  CAN  COWCEIVE 
THAT  GOD  COtTLD  GIVE  TO  ON* 
HTTMAN    ilFE    is    OPPOiltUNITT 


^ 


JO   JUCAKE    OUR    ilVES   WORTH   WHItii 
WE    MOST    BE    FttLED    WITH    FAlfH 


tibvavy  of  t:he  theological  Seminar;? 

PRINCETON  .  NEW  JERSEY 


-^<^ 


FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 
REVEREND  JESSE  HALSEY,  D.D. 
BV  4510  .G7  1910 
Grenfell,  Wilfred  Thomason, 

1865-1940. 
What  will  you  do  with  Jesus 


^ 


I  HAVE  SEEK  TEE  CRITBL  MAN  MADS  KIND, 
AND  THE  DRUNKEN  B(;AN  If  ADE  SOBER, 
AND  THE  IMPURE  MAN  kApE  PURE,  AND 
THE  rBEBLE  MAN  MADE  STRONG, 
AND  THE  COWARD  MADE  BRAvfe,  JUST 
AS  I  READ  YOU  OUT  OF  THE  LETTER 
TO  THE  HEBREWS  TH+T  FAITH  IK 
GOD    DID    THOSE    THINGS    OF    OLD 


WHAT  WILL  YOU  DO  WITH 
JESUS  CHRIST 


e 


What  Will  You  Do 
With  Jesus  Christ 


BY 

WILFRED  T.  GRENFELL 
M.D.  (OxoN.) 

Superintendent  Labrador  Medical  Mission 


THE    PILGRIM    PRESS 

BOSTON         NEW  YORK         CHICAGO 


Copyright,  1910 
By  Wilfred  T.  GrenfeU 


THB  •  PLIMPTOH  •  PRESS 

[W  .D  .0] 
RORWOOD  •  MASS  •  U  •  S  •  A, 


FOREWORD 

J)URING  his  latest  visit  to  the  United  States 
Dr.  Grenfell  was  asked  to  occupy  the 
pulpit  at  the  regular  formal  service  of  worship 
held  every  Sunday  morning  at  Harvard  Uni- 
versity. He  accepted  the  invitation  and 
utilized  the  opportunity  not  to  describe  his 
many-sided  work  for  fishermen  on  the  coast 
of  Labrador,  but  to  speak  to  that  great  company 
of  college  men  and  their  friends  concerning 
their  personal  relations  to  Jesus  Christ. 
Appleton  Chapel  was  crowded  to  the  doors, 
many  of  the  professors  with  their  families 
as  well  as  citizens  of  Cambridge  and  vicinity 
manifesting  their  desire  to  hear  the  well- 
known  missionary.  President  Lowell  read 
the  Scriptures,  as  he  regxilarly  does,  and  from 
the  time  Dr.  Grenfell  entered  the  pulpit 
until  he  left  it  this  congregation,  representing 
so  much  in  the  way  of  culture  and  attainment, 
[5] 


listened  attentively  to  his  unconventional  but 
exceedingly  forceful  appeal.  It  was  indeed 
**a  good  word  for  Jesus  Christ,"  to  quote  from 
Ian  Maclaren's  famous  story  **His  Mother's 
Sermon."  No  preacher  among  the  many 
distinguished  ones  at  Harvard  ever  presented 
his  Master's  message  more  lovingly  or  with 
apparently  greater  efifect.  The  depth  of 
feeling  recalled  the  memorable  days  when 
Phillips  Brooks  was  in  this  same  pulpit. 


[6] 


WHAT  WILL  YOU  DO  WITH 
JESUS  CHRIST 


Let  us  pray:  Grant)  Lord,  we  beseech  thee, 

that  the  words  of  our  mouths  and  the 

thoughts  of  our  hearts  may  be 

now  and  always  acceptable 

in  thy  sight,  through 

Jesus  Christ,  our 

Lord. 


WHAT  WILL  YOU  DO  WITH 
JESUS  CHRIST 


JN  standing  before  you  today  I  realize 
that  I  am  in  the  presence  of  men  who 
must  have  studied  the  philosophy  of 
Christianity  far  more  than  I  have.  My 
role  in  life  is  that  of  surgeon,  and  I  never 
have  had  time  to  devote  to  the  study  of 
theology.  I  can  speak  about  Christianity 
not  as  a  philosophy  but  only  as  a  rule 
of  life;  about  Christianity  and  the  fol- 
lowing of  Jesus  Christ  as  a  power  and 
a  factor,  whatever  else  they  may  be,  in 
human  concerns.  It  is  as  a  man  of  faith 
that  I  want  to  speak  this  morning.  And 
this  is  the  definition  of  faith  that  I  always 
[9] 


like  best  to  have  myself,  because  I  under- 
stand it.  It  is  one  of  the  translations  of 
the  only  definition  of  faith  given  in  Scrip- 
ture, viz.,  "  Faith  is  the  giving  of  sub- 
stance to  things  hoped  for." 


[10] 


AN   EXPERIENCE   IN    THE   EAST   END 

Twenty-six  years  ago  I  stood  in  the 
position  which  a  great  many  members  of 
this  audience  must  be  in  today.  You 
have  been  preparing  for  many  years;  and 
many  of  you  are  soon  going  to  start  out 
on  your  definite  lifework  —  if  there  is 
ever  such  a  thing  as  a  beginning  of  a  life- 
work.  It  was  at  that  time  I  found  my- 
self confronted,  quite  unexpectedly,  with 
practically  the  question  Pilate  put  to  the 
Jews,  when  they  wanted  to  have  Barabbas 
released  to  them:  **  What  shall  /  do 
with  Jesus,  that  is  called  the  Christ?"  I 
do  not  know  that  I  had  ever  thought  of 
it  before ;  I  had  attended  quite  a  number 
of  services  during  my  boyhood  and  young 
manhood.  But  they  had  never  inter- 
ested me,  and  it  never  occurred  to  me  that 
the  life  of  Jesus  Christ  and  the  personality 
[11] 


of  Jesus  Christ  bore  any  relation  to  my 
own  life  at  all.  But  as  I  say,  through 
circumstances  which  I  won't  describe 
now,  I  was  then  suddenly  brought  face 
to  face  with  that  thought,  **  What  shall 
I  do  with  Jesus  that  is  called  Christ?" 
I  did  not  decide  it  immediately.  But 
shortly  after  I  did  do  so ;  and  I  decided  in 
this  way,  viz.,  that  I  would  give  my  sub- 
stance to  following  him.  That  is  what  I 
call  faith.  Oddly  enough  I  was  sharing 
lodgings  in  the  East  of  London;  at  that 
time  I  was  at  the  largest  hospital  in  Eng- 
land; with  a  man  who  was  working  out 
his  education  and  spending  his  time, 
when  he  was  not  at  his  studies,  as  a 
Christian  Evidence  Lecturer.  His  shelves 
were  filled  with  books  on  all  sorts  of 
philosophical  subjects  —  Darwin's  books 
and  many  similar  ones  —  from  which  he 
[12] 


sought  to  find  evidence  for  the  faith  that 
was  in  him.  But  my  own  shelves  were 
filled  with  surgical  books  and  other  books 
of  that  kind,  which  occupied  all  the  time 
I  could  give  to  head  work.  I  had  to  just 
take  my  Christianity  on  faith,  and  that 
is  all  I  can  stand  for  here  today.  Jesus 
Christ  said,  **  If  you  want  to  make  your 
faith  knowledge,  be  willing  to  do  the 
things  I  say  and  then  you  shall  know." 
This  is  the  only  line  of  reasoning  I  have 
followed. 


13] 


THIS   PRESENT   WORLD   AND  ITS   CLAIMS 

The  aspect  of  Christian  life  that  ap- 
pealed to  me  then,  and  has  always 
appealed  to  me,  was  life  on  this  earth. 
For  I  never  worried  my  mind  much 
about  God's  dealings  with  me  or  any 
other  human  soul  when  this  life  is  over. 
The  salvation  that  I  was  after  was  the 
salvation  of  this  life  —  which  is  prac- 
tically the  same  question  which  you  must 
all  now  be  propounding  to  yourselves  — 
How  am  I  going  to  make  the  most  of  the 
short  stay  on  this  earth?  That  is  all  I 
have  that  is  my  own.  My  silver  and  my 
gold  —  all  such  things  are  not  mine;  as 
the  man  who  tried  to  swim  ashore  with 
a  belt  of  gold,  from  a  sinking  ship,  found. 
He  didn't  have  it,  it  had  him:  as  it  has 
had  many  another  man  who  was  not 
either  in  or  on  the  sea.  But  my  life  is 
[14] 


mine,  and  the  salvation  I  was  after  was 
how  to  save  for  the  best  purpose  such  life 
as  God  gave  me.  I  sought  it  by  giving 
my  substance  to  the  things  hoped  for, 
and  I  certainly,  honestly  hoped,  as  I 
had  seen  life,  that  there  was  something 
better  after  its  brief  day  here  was 
over. 

Eight  years  in  the  slums  of  White- 
chapel,  in  Wapping,  and  the  East  India 
docks,  among  the  sick  and  poor  and 
degraded,  between  Poplar  and  the  Mile 
End  Road,  left  me  with  a  very  sincere 
hope  that  there  was  something  better 
than  the  lot  in  life  that  was  open  to  the 
people  I  lived  among  and  learned  to  love. 
They  did  not  wear  silken  hose  and 
broadcloth,  but  they  had  human  hearts 
and  I  learned  to  love  them.  I  hoped 
that  all  that  has  been  built  up  on  the 
[15] 


teachings  of  the  Christ,  especially  that 
there  is  eternal  life  for  all  of  us,  was  true. 
I  was  willing  to  put  my  faith  into  it  any- 
how. 

What  again  is  this  definition  of  faith? 
Faith  is  the  giving  of  substance  to  things 
hoped  for.  There  are  men  who  despise 
the  Christian  faith  as  they  see  it  today; 
but  no  man  despises  that  kind  of  faith 
which  makes  a  man  willing  to  give  what 
he  has,  and  all  he  has.  It  is  quite  possi- 
hie  we  may  be  mistaken;  there  may  be 
nothing  afterwards.  But  Jesus  Christ 
says,  through  one  of  his  disciples,  **He 
who  believes  in  him  shall  have  no  cause 
for  shame."  And  the  man  who  puts  his 
hands  in  that  of  the  Christ's  and  is  will- 
ing to  follow  him,  may  possibly  meet 
such  shame  —  if  you  call  it  shame  —  that 
Jesus  Christ  had  to  bear.  It  may  cost 
[16] 


him  something,  it  may  cost  him  the 
carrying  of  a  cross;  but  who  can  say, 
that  though  it  costs  a  cross,  it  ever  brings 
a  man  real  shame. 


17 


WHAT   THE   YEARS   HAVE   SHOWN 

It  is  only  twenty-six  years  truly  that  I 
have  tried,  and  then  feebly  and  as  any 
other  man  might  try,  to  give  my  substance 
to  him  whom  I  believe  gave  himself  for 
me.  And  yet  I  should  say  that  had  I  been 
trying,  as  a  surgeon,  a  remedy  for  twenty- 
six  years,  and  had  found  it  had  not  failed 
me,  so  far  as  my  intellect  and  my  common 
sense  were  able  to  judge,  that  I  would  be 
justified  in  commending  that  same  thing 
to  others.  And  it  is  with  that  hope  that 
I  venture  to  stand  here  this  morning  and 
to  commend  to  this  large  audience  the 
faith  in  Jesus  Christ  that  will  just  take 
him  at  his  word.  I  wish  further  to  say 
that  I  believe  it  true  that  that  will  bring 
no  man  to  shame. 

The  first  question,  of  course,  that  comes 
to  a  man  when  he  is  accepting  a  new  role 
[18] 


in  life  like  that  is,  What  am  I  to  do  ?  I 
remember  talking  that  over,  because  like 
all  men  we  hear  so  many  things  said  — 
as  a  Christian  you  ought  to  do  this  — 
you  ought  to  do  that  —  you  should  not  do 
this,  and  should  not  do  the  other.  I 
always  think  that  one  of  the  beautiful 
things  about  the  Bible  is,  it  never  gives 
itself  away  by  telling  you  not  to  do  things 
or  to  do  things.  Instead  it  always  gives 
you  the  underlying  principle  such  as 
**  love  one  another,"  and  it  puts  into 
your  mouth  the  simplest  of  all  prayers, 
**  Teach  me  to  do  the  thing  that  is  pleasing 
to  thee." 

If  we  are  to  be  made  preachers  of  this 
gospel,  how  are  we  to  do  it  ?  How  are  we 
to  command  this  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ 
that  we  believe  in?  **By  this  shall  all 
men  know  that  you  are  my  disciples,  if 
[19] 


ye  do  the  things  I  command  you."  And 
how  are  we  best  to  satisfy  the  Master? 
It  seems  to  me  we  have  graded  our 
preachers  wrongly  sometimes.  We  think 
the  man  who  has  the  clearest  intellectual 
apprehension  and  the  greatest  capacity 
for  intellectual  reasoning  shall  be  the 
best  preacher.  I  wonder  whether  it 
struck  many  of  us  that  Jesus  Christ's  only 
disciples  were  never  graded  in  that  way; 
nor  were  they  ever  admitted  to  this  ser- 
vice for  their  correct  opinions.  Christ 
never  asked  a  man  first  what  he  believed, 
but  he  just  set  him  to  work. 


[20] 


LIFE   NOT   OPINION   THE   TEST 

It  seems  to  me  it  was  only  at  the  very 
end  of  his  life  that  he  asked  them  what 
they  did  believe,  and  then  only  one  of 
them  answered  and  said,  **  Thou  art  the 
Christ!"  and  a  few  minutes  later  even 
he  had  to  be  called  down  with  a  **  Get 
behind  me,  Satan."  His  faith  was  not 
the  valuable  asset  that  he  thought  it  was ; 
and  out  of  the  twelve  that  Christ  was  will- 
ing to  be  allied  with  under  the  name  of 
disciples,  not  one  of  them  had  the  ability 
to  say  that  he  believed  what  so  many 
men  think  necessary  that  we  should 
say  we  believe,  before  we  dare  look  upon 
ourselves  as  Christ's  followers. 

If  the  Christ  could  permit  Judas  to  be 

one  of  his  disciples,  I  thought  also  the 

Christ  would  permit  me.     **  Not  every 

one  that  saith  thou  art  the  Lord  shall  enter 

[21] 


the  Kingdom;  but  he  that  doeth  the  will 
of  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven." 

What  do  men  in  this  audience  think 
today  is  the  best  gift  that  God  on  high 
could  give  a  human  being?  I  do  not 
think  we  think  much  about  it,  perhaps. 
But  if  we  do  think  about  it  I  am  sure  no 
one  in  his  senses  would  get  up  and  say, 
"  the  best  thing  God  could  give  a  human 
being  is  a  large  income,"  for  of  course 
it  involves  many  other  things  to  make  a 
large  income  of  the  least  good  to  a  man  — 
even  Solomon  saw  that,  and  so  he  asked 
for  wisdom. 

The  best  gift  that  I  can  conceive  that 
God  could  give  to  one  human  life  is 
opportunity.  A  man  may  be  an  excellent 
surgeon  and  may  know  his  work  at  his 
fingers'  ends  —  but  if  he  never  finds  any 
one  who  needs  his  help,  he  can  never 
[22] 


attain  to  success  in  life.  Only  the  men 
that  God  gives  in  life  opportunity  to  do 
things  can  make  success  of  life.  One 
of  my  colleagues  on  a  very  small  salary 
was  offered  double  to  leave  us.  He  had 
a  young  wife  and  family.  His  answer 
was,  **  I  would  not  trade  my  opportunity 
here  for  ten  salaries." 

Success  seems  to  me  in  human  life  to 
be  not  in  what  we  have,  but  what  we  do 
with  what  we  have,  i.e.,  on  the  opportunity 
to  use  it.  We  see  the  truth  of  this  when 
men  look  back  on  life.  What,  after  all, 
shall  appear  to  have  been  the  real  source 
of  joy  in  life?  Christ  says  in  one  place, 
"  Enter  thou  into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord." 
What  was  Christ's  joy?  It  certainly  was 
not  in  ease  and  comfort;  it  was  not  in 
long  life  or  in  the  applause  of  men;  it 
was  not  in  riches  and  things  of  that  kind. 
[231 


Who  will  question,  when  we  come  really 
to  think  of  it,  that  those  things  are  paltry 
things  compared  with  the  lasting  joy  of 
having  done  things  ? 


[24 


FAITH   A   GREAT   DYNAMIC 

What  is  it  that  makes  men  do  things  ? 
Is  it  philosophy?  That  may  be  so. 
But  for  my  part  I  do  not  see  how  any 
man  can  do  anything  without  faith. 
You  cannot  find  a  new  cure  for  evil  or 
pain  or  sorrow  without  faith.  You  can- 
not run  a  business  without  faith.  In  the 
business  world  while  some  men  are 
doing  exactly  what  a  great  many  men 
are  doing  with  Jesus  Christ  —  waiting 
to  know  this  and  to  know  that  and  to 
know  the  other  before  chey  venture  on 
some  undertaking,  ant.ther  man  with 
only  faith  steps  into  t  ^e  position  and 
their  opportunity  is  lost. 

I  think  the  trouble  With  many  of  us  is 

that  we  think  that  by  n.uch  learning  we 

shall  find  out  God!    We  think  that  we 

shall  get  sure  of  the  premises  on  which 

[251 


to  base  our  relationship  to  Jesus  Christ 
by  the  study  of  books  and  the  hearing  of 
lectures!  Christ  said,  "  If  you  are  willing 
to  do,  you  shall  know."  His  spirit  will 
still  animate  our  hearts  and  lives  and 
dwell  within  us,  if  we  are  willing.  To  me 
it  is  a  question  of  whether  we  are  will- 
ing to  follow  the  Christ,  whether  we  are 
willing  to  pay  the  price  of  following  the 
Christ  or  not.  It  is  a  terrible  thing  to 
read,  as  I  read  last  week  in  the  story  of 
Judge  Lindsey's  work  in  Denver,  in  that 
book  called  **  The  Beast,"  that  out  of 
one  hundred  and  fifty  churches  only  five 
churches  came  to  his  help  in  his  fight 
against  the  brothel  and  the  dive;  and  the 
reason  was,  apparently,  that  they  were 
afraid  of  the  consequences!  In  reality 
they  had  no  faith. 


[26] 


A  GOOD  RULE  IN  SURGERY 

But  I  say  Christ  does  do  for  men  today 
what  he  promised  to  do,  and  what  these 
accounts  tell  us  he  did  do.  He  took  then 
a  fisherman  who  was  ignorant  and  un- 
learned, who  lied  before  a  handmaid  and 
ran  away  from  a  handful  of  soldiers,  and 
made  that  man  into  the  Peter  that  the 
world  has  ever  since  honored.  And  he 
does  it  again  now.  If  as  a  surgeon  I 
stood  before  you  today  and  advocated  a 
remedy  that  1900  years  ago  made  great 
cures,  and  you  were  to  say,  **  Well,  I 
don't  see  that  it  ever  does  it  now,"  and 
I  were  not  able  to  point  to  any  such  results 
now,  I  should  appear  to  be  either  a  knave 
or  a  fool.  What  sane  man  would  spend 
his  time  in  advocating  that  which  had  not 
for  centuries  fulfilled  its  promises  in  the 
benefits  it  claimed  to  be  able  to  perform? 
[27] 


All  I  can  reiterate  as  I  stand  here  is  that 
I  am  sure  that  to  make  our  lives  worth 
while  we  must  be  filled  with  faith :  that  I 
have  seen  myself  over  and  over  again, 
just  as  I  have  seen  the  temperature  fall 
and  life  restored  as  some  course  of  treat- 
ment benefits  a  dying  man,  so  have  I  seen 
the  cruel  man  made  kind  and  the  drunken 
man  made  sober,  and  the  impure  man 
made  pure,  and  the  feeble  man  made 
strong,  and  the  coward  made  brave,  just 
as  I  read  you  out  of  the  letter  to  the 
Hebrews  that  faith  in  God  did  those 
things  of  old. 


[28] 


CHRIST  THE  MAKER  OF  MEN 

I  thank  you  for  this  chance  to  stand  be- 
fore you.  I  shall  close,  as  I  began.  I  am 
only  able  to  commend  the  service  of  Jesus 
Christ  to  you,  because  I  believed  in  him, 
and  experience  has  convinced  me  that 
what  Paul  said  is  true ;  that  our  lives,  by 
"being  in  union  with  Christ,  can  be  made 
to  diffuse  the  fragrance  of  the  knowledge 
of  him  in  every  place."  By  union  with 
him  I  have  seen  men  making  these  tiny 
homes  in  Whitechapel  and  on  the  Labra- 
dor coast  that  were  little  better  than  hells 
on  earth  into  places  where  God*s  love 
dwelled,  where  men  gave  as  well  as  took, 
where  poverty  did  not  make  the  world 
look  half  so  blue  as  riches  often  do, 
where  tender  and  fearful  people  were 
enabled  to  meet  calmly  crises  in  life,  be- 
fore which  many  of  us  today  would  fail. 
[29] 


I  have  seen  this  faith  make  men  strong 
and  women  tender,  giving  them  in  these 
prosaic  days  the  power  to  be  true  and 
self-forgetful;  just  as  in  that  long  list 
of  men  of  which  we  read  this  morning 
men  were  made  pure  and  powerful  and 
unselfish  and  successful  by  faith. 

If  I  might  leave  with  you  one  question, 
it  would  be  the  question  that  I  faced  in  the 
same  way  all  of  a  sudden  twenty-six  years 
ago:  What  shall  I  do  with  Jesus,  that  is 
called  the  Christ? 


[30] 


Let  us  pray:   Otir  Father  in  heaven,  faith 
has  brought  us  into  this  chapel  this  morn- 
ing, and  in  faith  we  raise  our  voices  and 
our  hearts,  believing  that  thou  hearest. 
Grant   that  we    may   not   be  con- 
founded :  hear  our  humble  prayers 
and  help  us  to  stretch  out  that 
hand  of  faith  which  has  never 
been  stretched  out  in  vain. 
And  answer  and  bless  and 
forgive    us  our  feeble 
following.    We  ask  it 
for  Jesus  Christ's 
sake.    Amen. 


I  HAVE  SEEN  TEE  CRUEL  MXN  MADE  Kim), 
AND  THE  DRUNKEN  MAN  MADE;  SOBER, 
,\ND  THE  IMPURE  MAN  MADE  PURE,  AND 
THE  FEEBLE  M  AN  MADl^  STRONG, 
AND  THE  COWARD  MADE  BRAVE,  JUST 
AS  I  READ  YOU  OUT  OF  THE  LETTER 
TO  THE  HEBREWS  THAT  FA^TH  IN 
GOD    DID    THOSE    THINGS    OF    OLD 


THE  BEST    GIFT   THAT    I   CAW    CONCEIVl 
THAT    G^OD    COULD    GIVE    TO    ONE 
HUMAN     LIFE     IS     OPPORTUNITY 


TO    MAKE    OUR    LIVES    WORTH    WHILE 
WE    MUST    BE    FILLED    .WITH  >AITH 


'f 


